Performance of Palimpsest by Daniel Skoglund and Kathy Hinde recorded at Sonica Festival, Glasgow and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in Autumn 2012. Commissioned and produced by WELD and EMS, Stockholm 2010. Featured in Robin McGinley’s ‘Global Ear’ article in the Feb 2011 issue of The Wire.

Drawings in pencil. Drawings in light. Traces of journeys, mappings, sketches, networks, rhythms…
The actions of two performers cause chain reactions that affect sound and image.

A feedback cycle evolves as the audio-visual environment starts to influence the actions of the performers.

Graphite Sequencers designed and built by Daniel Skoglund create pitched feedback sounds as their playheads cross over pencil lines drawn on the floor. The parameters of the sounds respond to changes in the drawing and can be altered using the sequencers controls. The drawing becomes an ever-adaptable musical score that is read by machines.

The musical pulses from the mechanical sequencers affect the parameters of the video projections created by Kathy Hinde. Each sequencer is tracked live using an infrared camera. Animated circles emphasise the rhythmic pulses; an audio pulse can change the direction of a walking ant animation that leaves a digital drawing in its pathway. The projections at the start of the performance are traces from previous performances and maps of places where the work was developed which provide an initial guide for the pencil drawing.

The drawings are developed in response to how the sounds layer into a rhythmic composition. Electronic music emerges from textures, then collapses, only to reform in a new way.

Palimpsest: (1) Something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.
Palimpsest: (2) manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.

Some photos from performance at Tramway, Glasgow at Sonica Festival 2012

Some photos from the first performance at WELD Stockholm, November 2010